The apartheid wall cuts through the West Bank and annexes Palestinian land, in order to protect over half a million illegal Israeli settlers. As a form of resistance, there is art and graffiti across many parts of the wall. Photo Credit: Ahmed Mesleh

Going back to school and university is an exciting event for solidarity activists in each country, as it also means a fresh start to a new year campaigning for justice! Last year was an exciting one for university activists and many landmarks were made in the plight for Palestinian human rights. The Gaza Freedom March took place in the winter, followed by landmark divesting moves by students in California at Berkeley, and UCSD and the full divestment of Evergreen College through a vote from students. Students made the headlines while protesting war criminals Michael Oren and Ehud Olmert, and 11 students were arrested at UC Irvine following the suspension of the MSA for protesting Oren's presence. The year ended off with the massacres on the flotilla, where activists came together united in their plight to end the injustices beseiging the Palestinian people. Needless to say, all of these actions have put the Israel campaign on red-alert as they prepared through the summer and just released a brand new set of resources for pro-Israeli activists- including the "Hasbara Campus Pulse"

This year, it is imperative to work off of the astounding successes of our past year- and more importantly to capitalize on the attention that campus activists are receiving. And fortunately for all of you- we're sure that The Veritas Handbook can help make your year in campus activism more successful and pain-free! The handbook was primarily designed by campus students, for campus students. We know what campus activists need, and have done our best to make sure that the handbook can be useful and handy. We hope that your campus will be able to benefit and use the handbook for the revolution to justice worldwide. Not only that, many campuses will be pleasantly surprised to find their work being featured in the resource sections! Particularly useful for campus activists is the extensive appendix.

The Handbook consists of five sections:

A Concise History of Palestine: Geared towards educating an uninformed audience while solidifying information that any regular activist may have, it has been designed such that it could be a course for activists with a one hour session, once a week, for ten weeks.

Perspectives and Debates: Contains scholarly and academic insight by some of the most significant thinkers in the field and seeks to inform activists about the important issues surrounding our work and the controversies that arise. These issues, including the interpretations of Israel’s “right to exist,” approaches to confronting the Israeli occupation regime, non-violent and violent resistance, and the varying proposals for a solution to the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, are all addressed from a variety of perspectives. We have not taken a stance on any of these issues, but instead hope to provide you with the resources to make your own decisions.

Appendices: Five appendices with a comprehensive resource guide with numerous sources for accurate information, solidarity organizations, links to printable posters and pamphlets, human rights reports, and primary resources and a huge feature on the BDS movement and starting a campaign. We strongly suggest referring back to the primary resources and human rights reports that llie at the heart of understanding the reality of the situation. We have also included significant information not easily accessed, such as details about the Palestinian villages destroyed and depopulated during the 1948 Nakba, a list of Palestinian prisoners (men, women, and children) currently held illegally in Israeli detention, and a list of the children murdered by Israel during Operation Cast Lead. This section is best used virtually as it contains links to many resources, and if you do choose to print the handbook, we suggest that you omit this section.

Extended Bibliography: Comprehensive bibliography that can be used as a reading list.

We have tried to make the handbook qualitative as opposed to quantitative. Sifting through thousands of resources and materials was an arduous task and although 350 pages may seem endearing, we can assure you that this was after a dire effort to contain the plethora of resources available, choosing the best.

Finally, we wish to emphasize once more that our basic premise for the project is to raise awareness about the struggle for Palestinian human rights. This stems from our uncompromising commitment to justice everywhere, and our strong opposition to all forms of racism, oppression, injustice and persecution worldwide.

We hope that you will support the initiative by signing up to the list serve and fan page and follow us on twitter. We also urge you to spread this to all of your contacts! You can get access to all of the above by visiting our website www.veritashandbook.org